Arsene Schrauwen

In 1947, the author’s grandfather, Arsene Schrauwen, traveled across the ocean to a mysterious, dangerous jungle colony at the behest of his cousin. Together they would build something deemed impossible: a modern utopia in the wilderness ― but not before Arsene falls in love with his cousin’s wife, Marieke. Whether delirious from love or a fever-inducing jungle virus, Arsene’s loosening grip on reality is mirrored by the graphic novel reader’s uncertainty of what is imagined or real by Arsene. This first full-length graphic novel from the critically-acclaimed Olivier Schrauwen is an engrossing, sometimes funny, slightly surreal and often beautiful narrative.

Olivier Schrauwen studied animation at the Academy of Art in Ghent, and comics at the Sint-Lukas School of Arts in Brussels. He was a pupil of Pascal Lefevre. He has cooperated on collective albums as 'Hic Sunt Leones' (Bries, 2003), and contributed to Beeldstorm, Demo, INK, Zone5300 and Spirou. Schrauwen, who works in an old-fashioned style that resembles classic American newspaper comics, made the critically acclaimed book 'My Boy', published by Bries in 2006. On 11 July 2011, Pieter De Poortere designed a comics mural in the Rue Euler, Paris, featuring characters by Schrauwen, Judith Vanistendael, Brecht Evens, Randall Casaer and Jeroen Janssen, to promote Flemish comic strips. This was the first of its kind in France. In 2007, his 'My Boy' won the Debuutprijs van de Stad Turnhout, A.K.A. 'De Blikken Biebel'. Olivier Schrauwen was an influence on Inge Bogaerts, Tom Borremans and Ben Gijsemans.